Wake Up With Determination

I set my alarm this morning for 6:20am and was out of bed and on my yoga mat by 6:30. I did a 25 minute yoga practice and it was a wonderful way to start my day. I am going to start getting up early again. I did this briefly and it was very rewarding. I had more energy in the morning and was less dependent on caffeine to get my day going. I'll opening admit, caffeine is my drug of choice. But by waking up and working out for even 15-20 minutes, I start my day with a purpose.

I hate feeling rushed. I feel rushed even when I'm not being rushed. In the morning Mike will be quietly and patiently sitting around while I am getting ready to go. Even though he is uninterested in me and my pace of getting out the door I feel an overwhelming pressure.  So for me to get up extra early at 6:20am and workout, shower and get ready for the day gives me the feeling that I am in control and allows me to start my day at my own pace. The alternative is  waking up with just enough time to move from one task to the next before rushing out of the door.

I have always admired morning people. I attribute being a morning person and especially exercising in the morning with having your sh*t together. I have never been a "morning person", its just not who I am. Its a personality trait that i've owned and worn well. Ive often felt like I was being resurrected from the dead when pulling myself out of bed and unfairly been angry with people who disrupt my sleep and wake me up in the morning. However the tasks of life I have also require that I wake up early.  In college despite the ability to schedule classes to start at 12pm or later I usually elected early 8am classes so I would be able to still work in the afternoons. Over the years I have gotten better and more accustomed to waking up early.  I am also proud of the fact that I have also immensely improved with tardiness and I now consider myself to be a reliable person who can be counted on to arrive on time to work and appointments. I think these two things go hand in hand and are a basic part of being a well balance adult.

For  some time now I have wanted to become a person who gets up early and who works out in the morning. Particularly, I want to continue this trend when I get back to the states to add structure and control to my days. Being home with family with no job will mean that I am pulled in many different directions. Between spending time at my sisters house, my aunt and uncles, friends and helping my aunt at her shop its easy for me to feel like I am being pulled all over the place. This type of lack of structure has always caused me stress and made it difficult for me to be productive. If I am going to want to continue my workout routine and apply to jobs while not neglecting my friend and family I will need to create structure during this transition period. I think waking up early at the same time will help provide that!

Variety & Consistency are Key

Wow! What a luxury it is to workout in a gym. On Friday after traveling to Bangkok and arriving at the hotel, I went straight to the gym. Treadmills, free weights, ellipticals and machines galore. I was in heaven. I ran on the treadmill for 25 minute doing endurance training and them lifted free weights focusing on my arms. It was great! I had a purpose and was motivated. I felt fatigued and fantastic at the end.

Although gyms are great, I also know the importance of developing a workout routine at home that requires little to no equiptment. There are going to be days when you don't feel like working out and it is a lot easier to convince yourself to power up a workout video or do yoga on your living room floor than make yourself look presentable and drive to the gym.  What I've learned since I began this journey is that both variety and consistency are the keys to success. More important than having a killer workout every time is forcing yourself to do something physical, even for just ten minutes when you really really don't feel like working out.

Seeing is Believing

Okay so we have about 6-7 weeks left in Thailand and as of today I have 33 more days to reach my goal of 100 days of fitness. I'll need to get committed and workout at least 5 days a week until we leave to reach 100.  I have to make it happen.

The last few weeks were a pitiful workout here and there. This really set me back. I found that having a change in my schedule where I was staying after school for an hour maybe even an hour and a half to tutor a few students really set me back. By the time I got home I was really tired and didn't feel like working out. Instead of waking up early to ensure I got a workout in I allowed this to derail me. As one of my favorite saying goes "you either make progress or you make excuses".

All in all though, I have been noticing a difference in my body. I look thinner and my legs look much smaller. I still really want to get rid of my otter thigh bulge though. Although it not completely gone yet, my legs are looking much stronger and my arms are less flabby too. Hooray!

38 days to go. Don't give up now!

Don't Give Up

mini goal : 20 days

My goal for the month of February is 20 days of working out. Last month I worked out 15 day including my setback week. February is a shorter month with only 28 days so that means I can only afford to miss 8 days. I've already missed 2 days so far this week. But I can meet my goal as long as I work out today and tomorrow and then miss no more than 2 days each week for the rest of the month. Totally attainable! One day at a time so I just need to work out today! Mike and I are hiking 3 miles tomorrow at Doi Khun Tan so that will get me through this week. I'm feeling a little under the weather and hope I recover quickly.

I have been struggling with what constitutes a workout. As a general rule of thumb if I am really not feeling into working out and I do something even if not an intense workout say a 7 min run and body weight exercises I will count it. However if I just do 5 minutes of yoga stretches before bed to relax I will not count it as a workout. As I progress I suspect I will find my rhythm.

I know that results don't happen over night but I still find myself wanting to see greater progress especially in my thighs and arms. These are two problem areas for me and areas which my body stores fat. I know I am stronger and my body has tightened up some, I just have to remain focused and motivated and keep going no matter how small my progress is. I am excited to think about what my body will look like a year from now and I love the fact that I am making my body healthier.

Just a setback

Wednesday January 21 
The first half of the month I was going strong and up until my five day setback I had only missed a few days here and there in-between workouts. Unfortunately I was losing momentum. This past week was also particularly difficult as we were not following our regular routine of teaching due to Scouts at school.  This meant we were very involved with teachers and activities throughout the day and often had to stay late or return to school in the evening. This paired with my less than great mood translated into 5 straight days of not working out. Furthermore my weekend was filled with one poor eating choice after another. I was so relieved to see american foods and after a stressful week I felt entitled to indulge.  However along the same lines as the Pringles slogan once you start you just can't stop. This is quite ironic because the start of my unhealthy eating beige were Pringles which I ate while waiting for the bus in Lampang. My eating and non exercising continued into the next week and here I am on Wednesday and I am determined to workout today!

In the past I would likely have continued my pattern of stints of working out and a few weeks from now would be starting again at square one. But this time I have a goal and this is only a setback. I will continue to work towards my gaol of 100 days of fitness. Plus working out feels so damn good!

2015 Here I Come

100 DAYS OF FITNESS 

Beginning –
One of my goals when I was embarking on moving to Thailand to teach English for a year was to get into shape and to work out regularly. I knew that I would have more down time after work and less obligations with friends, basically less excesses to not to work out. Two months in and I started feeling ready to get serious about getting into shape. In the last couple of months I was dabbling with exercise. Doing yoga but that only lasted a week or so, then a few T25 sessions, doing about 10 push ups most mornings, walking afterschool school with a student who’s nickname is Honey. 

Tipping point – 
At school an older Thai women sitting with a group of other teachers said “you gain weight since come to Thailand” it was both a question and a statement. She went on to say “you like Thai food I can tell” and “why you not exercise like Mike”. Another teacher this one male also chimed in saying “Mike play basketball after school why not you”. I didn’t say much as I knew this was common in Thai culture. I didn’t feel it necessary to explain myself that yes I exercise occasionally and yes I like Thai food but maybe it has something to do with all the rice and noodles I eat here. Furthermore I have an American body not a petite Asian frame, thank you very much. I was really surprised at how upset and hurt I was by these comments. As I rode my motorbike home it was all I could replay in my mind coming up with response I should have but never would have said to tell her off. I had heard that other American teachers had similar experiences so I wasn’t completely caught off guard but I was surprised how offended I was. Fast-forward a few days and at the beginning of one of my classes a student asks “teacher you pregnant?’ as she patted her stomach. I said no and then proceeded to teach completely self consciously for the next 50 minutes. This was just salt in the wound. I went on to complain and joke about what the teachers and students had said. Only feeling worse when a teacher told my boyfriend Mike how skinny and fit he looked. Seriously? I wallowed in self-pity and complained out loud about how fat I felt and how I had an America body. I continued to walked at school with my Thai student and I did a session of T25. We headed to the South to the Islands of Thailand where I experienced a combination of jealously and inspiration by all of the fit foreign women I saw, especially those women with flat stomachs and tiny bathing suit bottoms that exposed that perfectly plump butts. Over our week vacation in the South I went from being jealous and self conscious to deciding I was going to do something about it. I was complaining so much about my body I was starting to even annoy myself and then I decided complaining wasn’t going to give me the body I want so I better start running. I’ve never really been a skinny girl, I have an athletic build and I grew up playing sports. I know that I always feel better when I work out. I love feeling strong and exercise is the best way for me to relieve stress. Due to a past knee injury I have to be cautious of how much running or high impact type exercises I do. The first and only time I ran a 5k my knee ached for weeks and it really scared me to the point I have ran another race since. I think this was due to not properly training and running to often leading up to the race. 

WHY I WANT TO GET FIT 
 • To look fit 
 • To feel strong 
 • For my health 
 • To work hard at something and stick to it 
 • So that I can hike and walk and travel without being exhausted and fatigued 
 • So I am fit for big life event down the road like my wedding and pregnancy 

Eating Habits  – 
When I first got to Thailand I was eating food that I wouldn’t touch at home like chips, ice cream, crackers, bread, white rice, noodles. Yes I would eat these things occasionally at home but not on a regular basis by any means. In the beginning your still adjusting to the food and you crave anything familiar. For me that was Lays waffle potato chips original flavor. When living abroad there are some things you can control and others you can. I had to quickly accept that I would be eating a lot of white rice and noodles and that I could not always control how much sugar and condensed milk was in my iced coffee due to language barriers. Thai’s like things sweet, very sweet. I could however control not eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches twice a day and toast and ice cream and chips. Not to mention that I am a classic eat your emotions type person. So naturally when dealing with the stress of adjusting to a new culture I was eating a lot of comfort and processed foods. About a month in I got a bad stomachache that lasted almost a week. I had a melt down and freaked out that I wasn’t eating enough vegetables here. I grew up eating vegetables and was one of those weird kids that liked bushel sprouts and loved broccoli. At the time we still weren’t cooking any meals at home and were usually eating fried chicken or noodles for dinner each night, as these were the only two options for dinner in our village past 4pm. My meltdown resulted in us getting a electric burner and sauce pan and we started experimenting with vegetables from the markets in our village. We’ve cooked up some pretty delicious vegetable stir fry’s, have made eggs for breakfast and eat a lot of cucumbers and tomatoes. I was able to get oatmeal from a grocery store in the city and have been having that for breakfast everyday at school. As many girls and women in the United States I developed unhealthy eating habits related to body image and stressful family situations. Since that time in high school and probably at points later, when wanting to make healthier eating choices I have struggled with the fear of it taking it to far and it becoming unhealthy. As for many of us I struggle with moderation and consistency. 

Start of 100 days of fitness – 
While walking up and down the Raily Beach on New Years day naturally I was thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in the next year and fitness was on the top of my list. 100 days of fitness kept popping into my head and it had a good ring to it. As I kept repeating it, the idea turned into something I would do. At first I thought I would exercise everyday for the next 100 days but I knew that was unrealistic. There would be unexpected things that came up or days where we travel for twelve hours and were exhausted and I would quickly get discouraged and give up. So my plan was to work out for 100 days, I would document each workout in my daily planner counting down from 100. I didn’t have to work out each day but everyday that I did would get me 1 day closer to 0. I’d be back in the south in about three months with friends visiting from the states and I could help but envision the fit body I would have and how confident I would be walking around in my bathing suit. I was excited and motivated. 

WHAT I KNOW WORKS FOR ME – 
• Setting specific goals 
       • 100 days of fitness 

•Documenting workouts
      • Daily planner 
      • Map My Run 

• Doing some form of exercise everyday 
     
• Doing a variety of workouts 
      • T25 • P90X 
      • Jogging/running 
      • Yoga 
      • Walking 
      • Hiking 

• Eating healthy 
     • Cutting down on sugar and processed foods 
     • Eating more vegetables and lean protein